... I'm writing to express that I am tired of the remarks I often hear from many atheists and ex-christians. I have done a lot of things to understand their point of views and to hear where they are coming from and I am tired of the way they treat my religious beliefs and my commitment to continue to identify as a Christian. I have read many ex-christian testimonies and atheist books. I have read some of Hector Avalos, G. Dever, Valerie Terico, Bart Ehrman, John W. Loftus, Dan Barker, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Victor Stenger, Steven Weinberg, Sean M. Carroll and many other ex-christian testimonies and atheist explanations all over the internet. I have read so many from ex-christian.net, on here, on you-tube, on yahoo answers, and all over the place. Sometimes I felt like my mind would explode. I have had friends leave Christianity and I have had days when I thought there was no hope for this religion at all anymore and I might as well become an atheist and get over with it. I even tried to become an atheist multiple times but I could not fight off the urge to pray indefinitely. This religion is just a part of my life, it is a part of who I am. My heart and my life was changed because of Christianity, this is not a sick and evil religion. I didn't always grow up religious. I lived in a secular family before that didn't believe in anything. I liked, and still do, like science and math and learning about the world around me. I loved astronomy and learning about the universe. I loved learning about nature and I was passionate about helping the environment. I thought Christians were dumb because they were so focused on the afterlife rather than helping people and the world in this life. I wanted to help all the poor and starving people around the world and I was angry that Christians were more concerned with saving people for some afterlife instead of helping people in this one. I was a decent moral human being without religion and so was my family. We definitely were not perfect but we weren't bad people either. We knew not to murder or steal and to be kind and we didn't need the Bible to tell us that. I was sick with anthropocentrism that I saw in Christianity and the world around me. "animals and plants matter too!" I thought. "They can feel pain too! We should care about all living things, not just humans."

I had raging hormones and crazy imaginations and like entertainment and literature and science and everything the secular human life had to offer. And yet I also love being a Christian now and this religion has changed my heart and my life. It made me learn humility and patience and peace. It gave me a heart to not fear and to not distrust but to love and to be content and to be light minded. I didn't go because I was greedy for some afterlife or because I was afraid of hell. It definitely was not the cool thing to do and I worried what my parents and family would all think of me. But I became a Christian because in my heart I felt it was the right thing to do and my life has drastically changed. I have known peace more than I ever could have known and am part of something greater than anything I have ever seen of felt in my previous life. I love this religion and I love all the things God has brought me through, bad and good. I'm not going to say Christianity has done only good things to me but even the bad things that came from being religious, Christianity helped me to rectify. Going to church and praying with my pastor was more effective than anything secular counselors or medications did for me. Do I know all the answers and the arguments to my faith? No I don't, I don't know what is absolutely true philosophically or scientifically or all that but I know what is true in my life and in my experiences. I am tired of reading ex-christian testimonies and atheist banter on how stupid and delusional and harmful our religion is. I'm tired of people saying I can't be religious and like science too. I'm tired of people saying that God is like this or that and that christians are all pig-headed stupid believers. I'm tired of people criticizing our religion in excessively negative ways and calling us all gullible, delusional, or imbecilic. We can believe some stupid stuff I admit, we can make big mistakes and have a lot to learn. We are not perfect but we have a lot of good things going for us. I love this religion, it has changed my life it has changed my heart. I have felt it and I'm still here.